The present invention relates to a strut for a vehicle suspension, and more particularly to a load sensor mount structure of the strut.
Struts with a load sensor of the piezoelectric type are well known. A known strut comprises a strut mount insulator including a rod mount bracket, and a shock absorber including a rod mounted to the rod mount bracket. The rod has a longitudinal axis and a radially extending sensor mount surface with respect to the longitudinal axis. The strut further comprises a structure for providing a positive motion connection between the rod mount bracket and the rod. This structure includes a load sensor pre-loaded between the sensor mount surface of the rod and the rod mount bracket of the strut mount insulator.
With this known structure, the load sensor sustains all of a load upon tightening nuts for fixing the rod to the rod mount bracket of the strut mount insulator. This force exerted on the load sensor is set as an initial load. As this initial load is large, the load sensor undergoes extremely large distortion upon being subject to an input load during operation of the strut. Accordingly, it is demanded that the load sensor has sufficiently large stiffness and strength. However, the load sensor with large stiffness and strength inevitably posesses a low distortion rate, thus suppressing enhancement of an accuracy in measurement of the input load and narrowing a range of measurement.